The Secret Tower
by Sunlit Wings
Summary: Nadeshiko Amiya is a simple girl who discovers the reason why her friends have been missing: they attend Hogwarts, the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. How will she cope with this sudden change of view? [xover with CCS]


A/N: This is a LINA production, beta-read by M. Here is: THE SECRET TOWER, prequel to THE OTHER STORY.

Disclaimer: All character names and places and ideas that belong to CLAMP or J.K. Rowling obviously DON'T belong to the lunatic author (or her Beta-reading sidekick).

The Secret Tower

Chapter 1

"...and the rest of the information will be sent you separately," the teacher finished. Suddenly, the thunderous sound of footsteps resounded from the hall. "Oh! I guess you can all go, now. Goodbye, and don't forget to have a good summer!"

Chair legs scraped against the floor, and the students all rose to their feet, collecting their bags, as the quiet was broken by the sound of many people talking about different things at once.

"Don't forget to keep in touch!"

"I can't believe it!"

"School's over!"

"I'm gonna miss our teacher so bad this year..."

"Let's get outta here, man! Summer's waiting!"

"Yo! I'll meet you at the basketball court later. I gotta chat with Tom first."

In a desk a few rows away from the two boys who had been speaking, Nadeshiko Amiya suddenly perked up. Blue-green eyes wide open. In her sudden movement, her long, silky dark hair had slid from its usual place – behind her ear – and now hung loosely down her shoulders. It made her resemble nothing less than an angel actually, but at the moment, she didn't have the heart to notice.

'Tom?' she thought, her heart accelerating to trice the speed it was a short moment ago. 'He can't mean, no...no way...not Tomoyo?'

"Oh, you mean that b-i-t-c-h?" mouthed the other boy.

"Yeah...just to arrange where we're gonna meet over the summer," came the casual reply.

Nadeshiko fumed, but silently. She had never had a good feeling about that boy, Joshua, that Tomoyo was going out with. It had taken a century to convince Tomoyo not to introduce them, so that Nadeshiko could spy on him in her classes. Of course, Tomoyo never knew WHY Nadeshiko didn't want to meet Joshua, she just thought Nadeshiko was shy...

"A-hem," Nadeshiko said softly, testing to see if they'd notice. They did.

Joshua turned his head to see who made the noise. He made a barely audible snicker when he saw who it was. Nadeshiko fought the urge to poke him in the ribs with her ruler. "What?"

Deciding against saying anything, Nadeshiko gestured to the strap of her bag, which was hooked around Joshua's chair. She, herself, had been the one who put it there, as a last-minute, before-summer test.

"Ha! Your bag, huh, hag?" Joshua's friend called. "Get it yourself."

Nadeshiko ignored him, but kept her eyes on them, knowing that they knew her bag was stuck unless Joshua got off his chair. She decided to play dumb, since she had played spooky last time and it hadn't fetched her any good evidence that Joshua was a player.

"Uh, I can't get it myself because, uh, it's trapped around the chair leg," Nadeshiko said lamely, in a dunce voice she'd been practicing. "You kinda have to stand up, I think."

Joshua and his friend sneered at her, but Nadeshiko wasn't concerned. As far as she knew, all their actions were being video taped into her head, and she'd report this straight to her friend Sonomi as soon as possible. Sonomi was an expert at dealing with players...

"Well, um, when are you going to stand up?" Nadeshiko asked innocently.

"Never," Joshua stated calmly, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking at her. "I don't listen to geeks."

'Come on, don't you have to talk to Tom?' Nadeshiko thought urgently. If Joshua stayed for any longer, her brain would bust while trying to remember everything.

Joshua's eyes suddenly widened, as if he had remembered something that he had been trying to recall for a while. His smile vanished, and, casting a suspicious glance at Nadeshiko left the room with his friend without so much as a call of 'loser' over his shoulder.

Nadeshiko watched the door close, slightly confused at Joshua's last-minute actions. 'What the hell? I can't prove anything with crap like that... Oh well, there's always next year.' Shrugging, Nadeshiko retrieved her bag, and walked swiftly out of the classroom, leaving it empty.

"Geez! What took you so long, sis?" Takashi asked, looking bored and angry at the same time. "I was beginning to think that you got kidnapped or something. Then I remembered that it's not healthy to get my hopes up."

"Ha," Nadeshiko said glumly. She didn't really feel like making up a comeback at her younger brother at the moment. She gave her bodyguard a brief smile before getting into the limo.

"What's wrong, Miss Amiya? You don't seem to be taking the summer atmosphere so well," one of the bodyguards said gently. She was one of the few lady bodyguards that Nadeshiko's father had instructed to escort Takashi and Nadeshiko to and from school, and she was pretty nice. Yet Nadeshiko was eager to get home and send an email to Sonomi, so she simply said that she was fine, and no one spoke to her for the rest of the ride.

At last, they reached the entrance gates of the Amiya mansion. Takashi jumped out as soon they stopped.

Nadeshiko got out without a word, determined to talk to Sonomi as soon as possible. She was continually replaying the earlier scene in her head over and over again, to make sure she didn't forget a single detail. Walking briskly past her mother on the way up into her room, Nadeshiko wondered what Joshua and Tomoyo were talking about. Joshua, obviously, would probably be acting all nice and everything as usual; Nadeshiko had seen him with Tomoyo on countless occasions.

"What? She's not online?" Nadeshiko gaped at her computer, having just entered her password. "Argh! I thought she said – "

Suddenly, a note just turned up on the corner of the screen, saying that **beeline64 **had just signed in.

"Ah..."

Nadeshiko explained the scene that had happened after school had ended that day, typing furiously. When she finished, **beeline64** sent a short message:

**beeline64: **_I got it_

"'I got it'?" Nadeshiko asked no one in particular, frowning. "This doesn't sound like Sonomi! Doesn't she realize how important this information is? She can't have been so busy the last few months that she's forgotten Tomoyo's situation?" Nadeshiko looked back onto her screen, and glued her fingers to the keyboard again.

**Angel278** **says: **_Well? Wut r u gonna do about Joshua? You haven't forgotten what I told you during the Christmas holidays yet, have you? And what's the reason behind your 'offline-ness'? You're NEVER online! WTF? Can't you see I need help?_

Nadeshiko pressed the 'enter' key and sat back in her chair, re-reading her message while she waited for Sonomi to reply. "If she's Sonomi, she won't be able to resist the urge to tease my last sentence, and she'll say, 'yeah, MENTAL help'," Nadeshiko said out loud, anxiously tapping the desk.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a message popped up:

**beeline64: **_yeah, mental help!!!_

Nadeshiko frowned. The irony was killing her. Sonomi had replied exactly what she usually did, but something wasn't right – why did it take Sonomi such a long time to type that? Unless Sonomi had been doing something else...but then, Sonomi loved to deal with players, so Tomoyo's situation would have been the most important thing for her, wouldn't it? Nadeshiko's frown grew deeper. Why was Sonomi acting so strange? The Sonomi she knew didn't take her time to think about what to say.

Meanwhile, miles away, in a clumped and crowded apartment, the paint was peeling as a woman, nestled in betweens heaps and heaps of files and forms, was rapidly thumbing through a thick handbook.

"Phew! That was the first, and hopefully the only mistake I'll make," the woman muttered, shaking as she quickly tucked in a loose strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear, where a large golden hoop was hanging. It would be obvious to anyone who peeked through the window or door that she was previously very beautiful – before her hair, halfway in a crystal-embedded spider clasp, had been messed with, and before her carefully applied makeup had been washed away with beads of sweat.

Dropping the handbook, apparently finding what she had been looking for, the woman quickly typed three words into the laptop resting on her lap. A sigh of brief relief escaped the woman's lips. _'Gawd, Sonomi dear,'_ she thought frantically, as she saw the action bar at the bottom of the window indicate that the younger girl on the other end – Angel278 – had started to type a reply. _'I wish that school of yours would let you out quicker! Get home soon!'_

"Alright, dear? You can start eating your pasta anytime now."

Nadeshiko groaned, and looked up from her plate. "Sorry mom. I'm feeling a bit off."

Mrs. Amiya looked concerned. "Oh really...? Are you alright?"

Takashi snorted hard into his peas. "She's been like that the whole day. I think she's broken. Can we drop her off at the dump and get a new one?"

Nadeshiko narrowed her eyes at him, and turned to face her mother instead. "Um, can I skip dinner today? It's just friend problems."

Mrs. Amiya opened her mouth as if to say something.

"They'll be solved soon – no need to worry about that," Nadeshiko added hastily, making a V-shape with her fingers as she stood up and pushed in her chair. She felt her parent's eyes on her back as she left the dining room.

"Ew! I'm not eating the peas, Mommy," Nadeshiko heard Takashi say slyly. "Look! See? There are bogeys in it."

"I'll be taking a walk outside in the garden, thanks," Nadeshiko said, as one of her maids opened the back door for her.

The maid closed the door without a word as soon as Nadeshiko reached the steps down to the pond.

Nadeshiko smiled to herself, as a sudden breeze blew her loose strands of hair back. She stopped at the cherry blossom tree in the farthest corner of the garden, and sat down on the birch bench in front of it. Closing her eyes, the girl breathed in the scent of the upcoming summer. Petals of pink silk were drifting along with the wind, and it all seemed like a blissful dream to the dark-haired girl resting against the bench.

_'I wonder how Tomoyo's doing,'_ she mused to herself, eyes still shut. _'I'm positive that Josh asked her out...hopefully she'll have the sense to tell me about it...'_

Suddenly, Sonomi's face flared brightly into Nadeshiko's mind.

_'Sonomi...what's with her? I should probably call her first thing tomorrow morning...'_

She opened her eyes dreamily, and looked up into the darkening sky. "Hello...are you there, God? It's me again. Here I am, water still flowing through me...trying to do my best at this game called life...Can you still hear me? Can I still hear _you_? I sure hope so...my friend needs my help again. It's that poor Josh. No matter how many times I pray for him, he doesn't seem to be getting any nicer. Yea...it's troublesome. But I know that someday, she'll find the right person. I will too, won't I?"

A sudden movement above awakened Nadeshiko from her reverie. She turned sharply to see a bird no larger than her palm, struggling as it was caught in between the spaces of the smallest two branches of the gigantic tree.

Nadeshiko clicked her tongue. "Tsk, tsk." She stood up, walked over the bird, and shook her finger disapprovingly at it. "There are so many branches in this tree, and you just _had_ to pick the smallest of the small to try and squeeze through, huh?" Nadeshiko sighed as she gently lifted the upper branch so that the bird could wiggle onto her other palm. A sigh escaped her lips, as she stroked the bird with a slender finger. "Don't worry; I don't blame you. We're all like that – always choosing the very hardest, just to prove that we can do it. But we can't always be showing off, you know. Who will be impressed, if everyone's wanting to be the one to impress?"

The bird fluttered its wings, as if denying that it had been showing off.

"Wait one momento...you can't possibly be _understanding_ me, can you?" Nadeshiko asked, holding the bird as far away from her face as possible.

The bird nodded. It was so subtle that it took a few seconds for Nadeshiko to decide whether she should scream or not. In a blink of an eye, the patio door was opened.

"Miss Amiya! Is something wrong?" a security guard shouted across the lawn.

Nadeshiko shook her head vaguely. _'It's probably another sign from heaven...'_


End file.
